German/English English/German Translation Thread

_____ dreht sich im Grabe um.

As a non-native speaker, I don't know if Germans use this idiom as often as English speakers do....

::cues BigSoccer natives Germans::

"X würde sich im Grabe umdrehen", it's mostly used in conjunctive.

It's not an uncommon saying.

But not as overused as in English ;-)

I mostly use it with people who aren't dead yet, just either really old or forgotten...for humorous effects

How do these people react on that?

How does who react? The un-dead people?

BACK to the thread topic, however...

Let's say I'm in a taxi, and I want to tell the driver that a certain street is "off of" (or "connects to") another main street.

For example, I'll want to tell the driver that my destination is Hotel Orly, which is on Gabrielenstr., which is off of Blutenburgstr. How would I translate this?

Straße X schließt an die Straße Y an.
Straße X knüpft an die Straße Y an.
Straße X grenzt an die Straße Y an.

If the streets cross:
Straße X kreuzt die Straße Y.

If only one of the streets is a main street:
Straße X ist eine Nebenstraße der Straße Y.
Straße X ist eine Seitenstraße der Straße Y.

If the streets run parallel:
Straße X ist eine Parallelstraße zur Straße Y.
Straße X läuft parallel zur Straße Y.

Common possibility: Fahren sie auf die XYStraße und dann rechts/links ab auf die ABCStaße.
(ABC is off of XY).

A quick question: is "off of" commonly used in the States? In Britain people just say "off", as in Gabrielenstr is off Blutenburgstr. Or if you wanted to be more formal, you could also say "crosses" or even "is orthogonal to" (maybe only used in Cambridge though...).

Ok thanks. Don't use "off of" in a British cab, the cab driver might think you've got a stutter or will get scared 'cos he thinks you are going crazy and have started barking at him.

Then again, don't use orthogonal either (actually it might work as lots of cab drivers have PhDs anyway).

"Off of" is horribly incorrect (grammatically), but it's what I hear the most around here.

Two prepositions in a row? Awful. But it is what it is.

Guys, I need your help.
I'm working on an extremely important paper for university:

* „So etwas Gutes bekommen die Amis einfach nicht hin.“

I'm curious which "Amerikaner" is going to help you out...

Possibly something like this..."Yanks just can't wangle anything that good"

I'm not sure about the use of "to wangle" though...

Americans just can't do anything that good.

Really?

Can someone explain to me exactly what "beziehungsweise" means? I'm reading all this literary stuff, books about Literaturwissenschaft, usw. and practically every third sentence has a "bzw." in it! I have a vague notion of what it means...but what does it mean exactly?

Can be used in more than one context:

- respectively
- i.e.
- or

Quick question. I'm writing an article for a newsletter, and I want to end my first paragraph with "Here is some information about FC Red Salzburg" or "Below is some information about..." or something similar.

What's the best way to translate this?

As Alex is not here, maybe I can step in with

"Es folgen einige Informationen ueber den FC Red Bull Salzburg".

or

"Hier sind einige relevante/interessante Details ueber ... "

or maybe just

"Mehr zum FC Red Bull Salzburg:"

Ausgezeichnet! Besten Dank, arthur.

Sorry for being so late . I would say the translation really depends on the tone/context of the entire paragraph, but you won't go wrong with arthur's suggestions probably .